A few words before we go

Surviving in a hostile world

July 31, 2004

Melodramma in un atto

I notice that Cavalleria Rusticana describes itself as "A Melodrama In One Act". I only mention this because football has been called "the opera of the people", and I've always maintained that football (and sport generally) is not a drama so much as a melodrama.

Jack Rosenthal might disagree though. Standing in front of a blackboard depicting a football pitch, he said something like:

Six-shooter?

Earlier this evening I twice went into the garden to help Alfred see off his doppelganger, another large black-and-white tom who has been in the house recently and, having found food on offer, has been back more than once since. As I've seen him in both back and front gardens and at both ends of the street, I assume he's on a mission of conquest reminiscent of Alexander the Great, and he's not giving up on number 63 just because he's up against two cats and a prematurely middle-aged man.

Anyway, just as the doppelganger had run off the second time, I heard three loud bangs from the direction of the street, in roughly the same place where a man was shot to death in November the year before last. I waited to see if I could hear anything else, and as no shouting or screaming followed, I assumed that nothing was amiss. I don't actually know what a gunshot sounds like. In fact I'm pretty sure I've never even seen a loaded gun.

Then, when I got back indoors, I heard three more bangs. Curiously, this had a reassuring effect. I suppose if I were firing three shots at someone I wouldn't wait for thirty seconds and then fire three more. So it can't have been anything serious.

Unless of course it was actually Alfred, going after the other tom with a six-shooter.

Growing old at 39

Yesterday, I managed to put together the following sequence:

1. I went to the local shop for fruit juice, and came back with a pint of milk.
2. I put a spoonful of coffee into a mug containing cold water.
3. I asked for a ticket to a Zone 3 Underground station, and found that the station I wanted was in Zone 4.
4. I also got the wrong line (Piccadilly, not Northern).
5. I meant to take my radio with me and forgot. (This at least is better than the recent occasion when I went to Coventry for a weekend and forgot to pack any clothes.)
6. I arrived at a cricket match and couldn't understand why somebody was there wearing a Kent shirt. After a while I remembered that I had come to see Middlesex play Kent.
7. I came home and put on the oven, then forgot to put my pizza in there.

I also posted this earlier today writing match as manage.

If there's anything else I forgot, misplaced, misremembered or did wrong, I'm yet to find out about it. But if you're as old as you feel, yesterday I felt about ninety.